EXCLUSIVE: Bankrupt Southampton Labour-run Council Appoints Its Own Councillors To Committees To Cover Up Its Failures

 

Bankrupt Southampton Labour Council
Using Your Money To Cover Up Their Failures

The Councillor Chair of the new Audit Committee at Southampton City Council is from the same Southampton Labour Party that has bankrupted the Council. But it's even worse than that...

As reported by Southampton Independents in early 2023, the Labour-run Southampton City Council was warned that it was on the brink of bankruptcy by the Chief Financial Officer, who then resigned and did not attend the budget meeting of the Council.

The Labour Party's Leader of the Council at the time is now Southampton Test MP Satvir Kaur. She led the Council to the precipice, and then quit at the end of 2023. 

The Captain who sunk the Council's ship then abandoned it - not the done thing really in a maritime City. And then once elected as an MP, Kaur quit the Council completely.

Satvir Kaur left a trail of destruction in the Council finances, in Council transparency and amongst the Council officers. She also chose the members of her Cabinet, including the Cabinet Member of Finance, who we shall come to in a moment.

The Chief Executive Officer Mike Harris also quit late in 2023 / early 2024, citing health difficulties relating to the job and the financial crisis.

So to sum up, who had quit in just one year? 

1. The Leader of the Council, who had only been Leader for eighteen months before resigning.
   
2. The Chief Financial Officer
3. The Chief Executive Officer

This is a spectacular failure of leadership by Satvir Kaur, chosen by Labour councillors - and Labour councillors only - to be Leader of the Council.

And the Cabinet Member for Finance during all of was Labour Councillor Steve Leggett, and to emphasise, the Cabinet including him were all chosen by Satvir Kaur.

Labour Councillor Steve Leggett
Former Cabinet Member for Finance

 

When the full horror of the Council finances that she presided over was realised - even by Satvir Kaur - Councillor Steve Leggett was then sacked from the Cabinet by Kaur around July 2023, as can be seen in the Council's agenda and minutes. The minutes of Full Council record that Leggett had "stood down" after "five years" as Cabinet member:

"The Leader formally announced changes to Cabinet...

Councillor Leggett had stood down from Finance and Change and been replaced by Councillor Letts who had previous held office as the Cabinet Member for Finance as well as Leader of the Council, and that Waste would be moving to Environment and Transport."

Kaur had also falsely claimed to the media in 2023 that it was a "lie" that the Council was bankrupt, contradicting her own finance officer, the chief executive, the facts of the Council finances that showed the glaring black hole between income and expenditure, and the many media reports of the crisis.

Just a few months later in December 2023, Kaur resigned as Leader.

A year later, the Council is still struggling to balance its budget.

It has been given permission to sell off its assets by Government to pay the daily bills - a so-called "capitalisation direction". Normally councils are not allowed to do this. It is the equivalent of selling off your family silver to pay your bills.

And the Labour-run Council also tried to hide its dirty secret that it had asked the Government to put our Council Tax up by 15%. It all came out during a public meeting. We reported it in May 2024.

And Southampton Independents had predicted Southampton Labour would do it, over a year before in March 2023, because we saw what Labour did in Croydon (bankrupted the Council and then denied it) and had warned Southampton residents about it by reporting on it and informing local media.

So has the Council turned over a new leaf? No, it is looking to cover up its failures to protect the Labour Party, instead of confessing to its failings.

In July 2024, which amazingly is the anniversary that Steve Leggett had left the Cabinet as Member for Finance, a new "Audit Committee" was created at the Council.

You may say that this was too late. You would be right. The ship's bow was already teetering on the brink of the water a year before. having been sunk by Kaur and her Labour cronies.

How seriously should we take this "Audit Committee"? Not very, we suggest...

Let's play a game shall we?

Question: Well... can you guess who the Chair of the Audit Committee is... 

Labour Councillor Steve Leggett
Chair of the New Audit Committee

A quick check of the agenda and minutes of the Committee and you can see that it is...

Answer: The one and only... Labour Councillor Steve Leggett!

Talk about Southampton Labour councillors marking their own homework!

Residents ask us what can we do when Labour has a majority of councillors? We say that we work together with residents to expose and challenge the Council, and to work to reduce the number of Labour councillors. And as you can see above, we have done that. Already, the number of Labour councillors is reducing. They lost the Shirley by-election, for example.

Our founder Andrew Pope has written to the Council officer in charge of governance, the "Director of Legal and Governance and Monitoring Officer", whose name is Richard Ivory. Mr Ivory is the only officer of the three statutory senior officers who is still with the Council after all of the above changes to Leader, Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer.

They will only steady the ship with proper scrutiny and challenge. But of course Southampton Labour councillors do not want that. They prefer to appoint Labour people to cover up their failings.

Former Councillor Pope suggested to Mr Ivory that the Constitution of the Council should state that the Chair of the Audit Committee should not be from the same party. Perhaps it should be an independently-minded councillor, instead of the same councillor who took the Council to the brink, from the same political party.

The Director of Legal stated that it was councillors that decide who the Chair is, and that:

"ordinarily and by convention the Chair would be from the Administration"

So the Chair of "Audit" is a stitch-up by the councillors on the Audit Committee, the majority of whom are Labour! And the Committee was only created a year after Councillor Leggett "stood down" (or was sacked) from the Cabinet.

Labour To Allow Council Tax To Go Up... Despite Keir Starmer Promising To Freeze It

 

Yet Another Labour Robbery of Your Money

Keir Starmer's Labour Government has confirmed in Parliament this week that it will allow councils to put up council tax. But as recently as last year, it promised to freeze council tax if in Government.

Last year, in March 2023, as reported by the BBC, Keir Starmer promised to freeze council tax if Labour was in Government. It is now in Government.

"In a speech in Swindon, Wiltshire, Sir Keir said freezing council tax was 'a tax cut for the 99% of working people, compared with the tax cut for the richest 1% that we get under the Tories'."

This is yet another lie by Keir Starmer's Labour Government and another robbery of Southampton residents' money.

Let's not forget that as reported by Southampton Independents, the Southampton Labour Council asked Government whether it could put up Southampton council tax by 15%.

And Southampton Labour councillors tried to hide their request to Government from residents.

Where is the Southampton Park and Ride? Our Campaign Goes On...

 

Another Southampton Independents Campaign

Unlike Portsmouth and Winchester, Southampton does not have a park and ride for the general public to use.

Southampton Independents has been campaigning for one for years, but the City Council has failed to deliver it.

There is one for staff of Southampton General Hospital. It was built after we met with hospital management years ago, after we had called for a park and ride, and after an inquiry into hospital travel.

And there is something calling itself Southampton Park and Ride, but this is for cruise passengers only.

So despite our long-running campaign, there is still not a Park and Ride for the general public to use.

An ideal site would be at the north-western edge of the City, near to the M271 and not far from the M27. This is where the Hospital staff Park and Ride is located, on Brownhill Way, near the Lidl warehouse and Lidl store.

In 2018, campaigner and former Independent Councillor Andrew Pope called for Lidl to pay for a park and ride, as they were building a store to add to the large warehouse in the same area. He told the Daily Echo:

Andrew Pope

"I want to see what Lidl is going to do for local residents, because Lidl will be making lots of money, so they have to deliver benefits such as improved transport links, a new park and ride, and finally deliver on the promise of sustainability including solar panels on top of the huge local warehouse.

The Labour Council has to make Lidl do this.

Residents and the local area must benefit from the new store, if it goes ahead.”

Lidl on Brownhill Way, Southampton

Councillor Pope also wrote to the Daily Echo about the lack of a Southampton park and ride, and his letter was published. It is copied below.

And in 2013, Councillor Pope led an inquiry into "Public and Sustainable Transport Provision to Southampton General Hospital". This inquiry considered the problem of the volume of car traffic caused by staff at the hospital and its impact on local residents and local streets. It found the huge impact that the hospital has on travel within and around the City of Southampton:

"The Hospital has up to a total of 7500 staff, a number of these work shifts or

are on call. In addition there are University employees and students who

regularly have needed to visit the SGH site. By the size and nature of the

Hospital and its activities, the Trust is one of the major employers in

Southampton. In addition there are in the region of 600,000 patient visits

per annum."

Pope's Inquiry called in local bus companies and hospital staff to give evidence, and recommended that the hospital fully reviewed its Travel Plan. Recommendations were made to the Council and the Cabinet Member for Transport accepted all of the recommendations.

Yet eleven years later, there is still no Park and Ride.

Andrew says: 

"We've listened to residents and businesses who are fed up with the constant road chaos caused by Councillor Eamonn Keogh and the Labour-run Council failing to take the action that works. In fact, Keogh has constantly caused chaos instead of reducing it. 

Southampton Independents will carry on our campaign for a Park and Ride for Southampton. Get in touch to give us your support and your views on it."

READER LETTER: Cllr Andrew Pope: 'No park-and-ride, no clean air and no leadership at city council'

RESIDENTS are fed up with the lack of action on clean air from successive administrations of both Southampton City Council and the government.

All we hear about are task forces, networks and strategies.

As your editorial rightly points out, it seems that drastic action is now needed. Why? Because over so many years – decades residents tell us – all they've offered is talk and delay. And they are only talking about drastic measures now because the courts are forcing them to.

No park-and-ride like other local cities. No clean air. No leadership. And the council approves more warehouses and HGVs and brings more pollution from the sea, from the land and from the air.

All their pathetic measures have delivered thus far are more illness and death.

This is proven by the council's own reports, including one that went to cabinet on Tuesday when it considered the Clean Air Zone. It states that parts of Southampton, and Redbridge in particular, have respiratory illnesses above the average for Southampton, including for children at our local schools that are next to major roads.

Once again, it is Labour or Tory, same old story. It is no wonder, then, that both the Labour and Tory leaders were both voted out at the council elections last month.

Labour almost lost the Redbridge seat to Southampton independents and control of the council. There were only 199 votes that prevented both from happening.

Nobody cares really who pays for the measures, but it should not be those who can least afford it.

Don't residents and businesses pay enough council tax and business rates already?

Councillor Andrew Pope

Southampton independent councillor for Redbridge Ward

EXCLUSIVE: EIGHT Years Later, Bad Landlord Southampton City Council STILL Failing on Damp and Mould

Campaigning for A Better Council

 

Southampton Independents began its campaign on fire safety in early 2017. During that campaign, we uncovered a whole raft of issues across Southampton on housing more generally. Many of these problems had been around for a while, and Council tenants were increasingly frustrated.

When we took BBC Radio 5 Live's investigative reporter Adrian Goldberg to the tower blocks in International Way in Weston, he was shocked. He filed this video, with Andrew Pope showing him around. 

As well as the fire safety issues, we observed damp and mould. This had previously been reported by tenants of Canberra House in International Way. As the Daily Echo reported, the Council had "vowed" to address the damp and mould, and the fire safety issues.

Yet eight years later, the Council's own report still shows "high risk" issues on damp and mould.

Southampton City Council's own Director of Housing has admitted that the Council is a bad landlord, quoted in writing in the Council's own report:

"Over the last few years, our performance relating to our housing landlord function has fallen below an acceptable standard. We must and will do better."

We have written to the Cabinet Member for Housing, Labour Councillor Andy Frampton, on several issues. We still have not received any response.

So now we are revealing more shameful information, from the Council's own reports that we have obtained, about damp and mould, to add to:

• the huge cost of empty properties and delays to fill the properties with tenants
• the Council's failure to deal with high risk fire safety failures, and 
• the change to Council policy to allow non-Southampton residents to go on the waiting list.

We quote directly from the Council's own report:

"The high risk exception was raised in relation to sample testing of 25 damp and mould cases establishing 8/25 did not include photographs alongside the surveyor’s findings, 6/25 did not have a surveyor report on file and for 10/25, testing was unable to evidence the authority contacting tenants to follow up on damp and mould issues."

To interpret this:

• 32% of damp and mould cases did not provide photographic evidence
• 24% had no surveyor report to provide evidence
• 40% had no evidence that the Council as landlord had even followed up with tenants on damp and mould issues
  

Campaigner Andrew Pope says: 

 

Daily Echo early 2017
on our fire safety campaign
quoting Andrew Pope

"We will try again to get answers from Councillor Andy Frampton, and have contacted the BBC and other media to ask that they cover this, as they have covered private sector damp and mould issues following the terrible deaths and illnesses caused by bad landlords.

It is also nauseating to see Southampton Labour MPs like Darren Paffey, who himself was approving housing spending in the Council Cabinet for years, focus in a recent BBC report by Emily Hudson on BBC South Today only on private sector blocks when his own Labour Council is still failing as a landlord.

It's selective representation and party political myopia when his job is to protect all his constituents from all bad landlords, including the Council."

 

Standing Up For Sotonians

EXCLUSIVE: Ten Years Later - Still Protecting Citizens' Rights To Vote From Tory Threats

 

The Refurbished St George's Hall, Calshot

Ten years ago, co-founder of Southampton Independents Andrew Pope led a campaign to protect the right to vote of residents of Calshot, when Tory councillors and officers at New Forest District Council had resolved to close a remote polling station.

Once again, ten years later, there is another review of polling stations by the local Council and again, the local Conservative councillors are failing to protect the right to vote for local people.

Calshot is a remote community at the end of the A326, which runs from Southampton and along the Waterfront at Southampton Water. Closing that polling station would have meant a long journey for voters to Fawley. Bus services there were rare. And the walk would be long and hazardous along an unlit main road.

Despite this, the Conservative-run Council's General Purposes Committee had resolved to close St George's Hall as a polling station. So when Labour's 2015 Parliamentary Candidate for New Forest East, Pope started a petition of people who lived in the area and presented it to the Council.

Chris Yandell of the Daily Echo covered the story.

The campaign was victorious in causing a u-turn, despite local Tory councillor Alexis McEvoy claiming that we were "scaremongering". As reported by the Echo, the Council had resolved and minuted via the General Purposes Committee to close the polling station.

St George's Hall was being run down, and being talked down by officers of the Council and councillors.

Now, it has been refurbished and control will be passed to Fawley Parish Council. More photos are below. Perhaps this was a sign of a new commitment to the facility from local councillors and the Council?

 

The refurbished Main Hall

The refurbished kitchen

Andrew contacted both local New Forest District councillors, who are both Conservatives, to ask them to pledge to protect St George's Hall as a polling station.

Despite chasing, no such reassurance has been received from Councillor Alan Alvey or Councillor Matthew Hartmann.

What happened to Alexis McEvoy, you may ask?

She is no longer a district councillor, following her 'racist' attack via Twitter on much-loved footballer and pundit Ian Wright.

McEvoy was placed under investigation and had the Conservative whip removed from her. She was also removed from the New Forest National Park Authority.

McEvoy remains as a County Councillor until the elections in May 2025. Some call her "independent" but really she is just a disgraced Conservative.

So have the current local councillors turned over a new leaf? No.

Below is the far-from-delightful and far-from-helpful response from Conservative councillor Alan Alvey, who was given two opportunities to state his commitment to St George's Hall.

"Dear Mr Pope

 

Your original message did not require a response as I am not responsible to you for how I act. You are not one of my constituents and, so far as I am aware, have no connection to the Calshot Ward.

 

Regards

Alan Alvey

Fawley, Blackfield & Langley,

New Forest District Council"

It seems that the standard of Conservative councillor has not improved despite the removal of Alexis McEvoy!

And the people of Calshot need to know that the Tories have not learned any lesson.

Independent councillors of New Forest District Council did reply via their Group Leader Peter Armstrong. And their reply was very helpful in describing the plight of Calshot residents, including more cuts to the buses.

Let us hope that all Conservative councillors for the area will be removed by the people of the area in any future and upcoming elections, and that the polling station is retained.

 

EXCLUSIVE: Do You Believe the French Authorities Are Stopping the Boats? We Have The Numbers... And They Don't Add Up

 

Net Migrants Arrived Minus Prevented in 2024
Source: French Authorities and Home Office and Border Force

 

In an exclusive analysis, Southampton Independents can reveal that there have only been just eight weeks since 5th May 2024 where the number of illegal migrants arriving in the UK on small boats has been less than the number prevented from arriving by the French authorities.

This is only eight weeks out of twenty-six, from 5th May 2024 to 27th October 2024.

In every other week, eighteen weeks in total, the number of migrants arriving has exceeded the number of migrants prevented.

The number of migrants arriving is reported by the Home Office and Border Force.

The number of migrants prevented is reported using "operational estimates" provided to the UK Government by French authorities. No prevention figures were available prior to 5th May 2024.

So while the French authorities might be stopping some of the boats, using substantial amounts of UK Government money to do so, other boats are getting through, and as we have reported, the total that have arrived in 2024 now exceeds 30,000.

Prime Minister Starmer has just announced at the Interpol conference in Glasgow that he would be doubling the money given to France to £150 million. So the figures might suggest that it is working, to an extent. There is no doubt that some of the boats are intercepted.

But when the net number of boats is calculated using the same figures, more questions arise.

 

Net Boats Arrived Minus Prevented in 2024
Source: French Authorities and Home Office and Border Force

 

As you can see in the graph above, it appears that there are only three weeks out of twenty-six that more boats arrive than are prevented.

Which then begs the question, how did we get to over 30,000 migrants arriving if these figures are accurate?

And then we might start to question the figures published by the French authorities, the Home Office and Border Force.

Which then leads to questions of trust, already at low levels on this issue.

Perhaps Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron might be discussing the accuracy of the figures during their meeting in Paris following the Armistice Day commemorations today?

Or perhaps they won't... 

And this massive failure of successive governments will continue to undermine our country's, and our City's, security and community cohesion.

 

EXCLUSIVE: Seven Years After Grenfell and Redbridge Towers City Council Tower Blocks STILL Have "High Risk" Fire Safety Failings

 

The 2017 Daily Echo Headline That Began Our Fire Safety Campaign
After the Redbridge Towers Fire

We can exclusively reveal that Southampton City Council still has "high risk" fire safety failings in its tower blocks, seven years after the Redbridge Towers fire in early 2017.

Southampton Independents led the campaign for better fire safety in Council tower blocks and secured a commitment from the Council for sprinklers to be installed in all Council tower blocks.

Later that year, the Grenfell disaster occurred in London, with 72 victims.

Two years ago, we reported that there were still problems. 

Now, a Southampton City Council report that we have obtained states that:

"17 high risk fire actions are overdue"

The report does not state which blocks these are in, or what the risks are.

Andrew Pope, who led the campaign for sprinklers in all Council tower blocks, says:

Andrew Pope on ITV News after Redbridge Towers fire in 2017

 

"This news does not surprise me. I have seen the state of repair of tower blocks in the City, including Shirley Towers when I stood as a candidate in the recent by-election.

Southampton City Council is a bad landlord. I've heard so many complaints from tenants of the Council and not just in tower blocks. Even the Director of Housing has admitted it, saying and I quote:

'Over the last few years, our performance relating to our housing landlord function has fallen below an acceptable standard. We must and will do better.'

BBC Radio 5 Live initially did not believe me when I told them that the Council was failing on fire safety in its tower blocks.

So I showed their journalist Adrian Goldberg, having invited him to come to Southampton. He was shocked and published video footage on the BBC website.

Yet all these years later, the Labour-run Council still have not got a grip on fire safety. I will be writing to the Cabinet Member for Housing, Labour Councillor Andy Frampton, asking for more information and demanding action."

EXCLUSIVE: When Will Illegal Migration Be Stopped? Starmer Record Now Worse Than Sunak - Tops 30,000 in 2024 - Full Breakdown Per Day

 

Illegal Migration Under Tories and Labour in 2024

 

An exclusive analysis by Southampton Independents has shown that Keir Starmer's Labour Government is even worse at preventing illegal migration than "Southampton boy" Rishi Sunak's Tory Government's disastrous failure to "stop the boats".

The graph below shows the number of illegal migrants arriving on small boats per day during 2024, up to 27th October. 

 

Southampton Independents Graph of Illegal Migrants to UK
Source: Home Office and Border Force

 

When totalled for the periods under Tory and Labour Governments, as shown in the graph below, it is clear that it has got even worse under Labour.

 

Illegal Migration Under Tories and Labour in 2024

(N.B. The resemblance of the graph to the French tricolore is entirely coincidental.)

Far from "smashing the gangs" that Starmer repeatedly promised before July's General Election, the official Government figures that we have analysed show that the number of illegal migrants that have arrived during the Labour Government has now topped 17,000 in just four months, from 5th July to 27th October 2024.

The total number of 17,087 during Starmer's Labour Government far exceeds the 13,574 recorded under Tory Sunak in the six months from 1st January to 4th July 2024. Sunak's record was bad enough and people did not vote Conservative in the General Election because of it. Their votes went elsewhere.

Having plummeted in his approval ratings to be the most unpopular Prime Minister in record time, and with Labour losing the recent Shirley by-election and more by-elections across England and Scotland, Starmer and his hapless Home Secretary Yvette Cooper now appear to be in panic mode.

Starmer has met with "far right" Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, seemingly to get advice on how to deal with illegal migration, which Labour has pathetically rebranded "irregular" migration.

Now the Prime Minister is due to make some new announcements and form new units, in what seems to be a pattern of behaviour of creating units, adding bureaucracy, writing strategies and making public relations announcements that make no difference, yet at the same time declaring "no more gimmicks".

Co-founder of Southampton Independents Andrew Pope, who stood in the recent Shirley by-election as an Independent candidate, says: 

 

Andrew Pope

"When I stood in the recent Shirley Council by-election, I asked residents what was concerning them. Some residents told me on their doorsteps that they want to know when the boats will be stopped and when our borders will be brought under control.

Residents are concerned about the impact of illegal migration and the out-of-control legal migration on Southampton and our housing, our jobs, our education system, on social care and NHS, and on social integration and cohesion.

They were already concerned before the EU Referendum, when our borders were supposedly to be brought under control - another failure of the Tories.

But now, the impact of migration is bigger... much bigger. It's too much and it's too fast.

I pointed out to those residents that controlled migration can have a positive impact on all of those things, if Government gets a grip and a measure of balance, and communities are given time to adjust. But clearly, that isn't the case.

The Labour-run Council is no help on this issue either. 

My investigation and report has shown that just weeks after the General Election, the Labour councillors that run the Council abandoned its 2014 policy of Southampton council housing for Southampton people.

Now they are allowing people who live outside Southampton to get on the waiting list. Officers said they don't even have any record of having rejected any applications from people who did not live in the City.

I fought for the "local connection" policy of a minimum 3 year residency  when I was still in the Labour Administration back then. I put it in the Labour Council Manifesto.

Apparently the policy was brought in in 2014 - Council officers confirmed this with copies of the policy - but it has been abandoned at some point during the last ten years. Exactly when is not clear.

I've written to the Housing Cabinet Member Councillor Andy Frampton about the Council's response to my Freedom of Information request, but have received no answer in a fortnight. You would think he would be able to explain.

The Leader of the "opposition" Tories Councillor Peter Baillie has also not replied when I asked him whether he supports the Labour abandonment of the policy.

Local people agreed with me in my conversations with them that on illegal and legal migration, in Government and at the Council, it's another case of Labour or Tory, same old story.

That's why Labour is losing elections across the country and why the Tories have had to elect yet another new Leader after losing the General Election.

Trust and confidence in Government will continue to go down unless these Westminster parties start to control our borders and restore some sense of harmony and balance to society, and to halt the continuing immigration chaos and panic. 

Migration can be a positive force but at the moment it is totally out of control."

If you would like to know what support asylum seekers get, you can see it here on the Government gov.uk website. They receive free money, free healthcare, free education and free housing.